ENGL 1F: Transition to College Writing

ENGL 1F: Transition to College Writing

  • Course Theme: “Critical Rhetoric and Writing about Writing”

  • Instructor: Dr. Shailen Mishra

  • Student hours: Tuesdays/Thursdays from 1-2 pm, and by appointment. My office is at Parrish 227W. If you plan to stop by during the student hour, I would appreciate an advance email notification.

  • Email: [email protected]

Important: Course communications will primarily happen via your college email id. Make sure to check it regularly.

Course Description

This will be an academic writing course with thematic focus on critical rhetorical engagement. There will be three major writing assignments and one end-of-the semester reflection exercise. Additionally, students are expected to complete reflection exercises throughout the semester. These reflection exercises are intended to help you record your learnings through the semester, reflect on them, and strategize how to transfer your learning from this course to future writing contexts. Also, these reflection activities will serve to build your ideas toward the final end-of-the semester reflection exercise, in which you will develop a personal theory of writing. Another area in which you’re expected to do regular writing is discussion posts. In most class periods, you will have assigned readings to complete. To prepare for our in-class discussion on these readings, you will be expected to complete a discussion post before the class time. All in all, this will be a writing-intensive course. My hope is that with frequent but shorter writing activities you’ll grow confidence as a writer and frequently reflect upon your learnings, whereas the final draft for each longer assignment will be complemented by a constellation of writing requirements so that you can scaffold your ideas gradually and not be overwhelmed by the length requirement of each final draft.

One main objective of this course is to help you transfer the writing skills you learn to future writing contexts. Please know that writing skills cannot transfer wholesale from one writing context to another; rather, a writer must adapt and make strategic changes to their approach depending on a particular writing context. This course intends to give you those adaptability strategies by helping you know yourself as a writer (through a sequence of reflection exercises), know your writing strengths/weaknesses, learn how to analyze a writing situation and its demands, learn the key rhetorical concepts of writing, and develop a personal writing theory of your own.

Schedule

The weekly schedule for the course is available at this link.

Texts

Your course readings will come from open source textbooks or they will be made accessible to you through your library.

Grade Distribution

Total course grade (100%) will be divided into several components: 1) Major Writing Projects (three in total): 75%; 2) Class Participation & Discussion Posts: 12.5%; 3) Reflection Assignments: 7.5%; 4) Final Reflection Exercise: 5%. One note on the grade distribution: commitment to the writing process plays a crucial role in this course and it is factored in the different stages involved in each writing assignment. It’s important that you complete all the components of each assignment, and pay attention to and document how your work evolves in stages through various reflective exercises involved.

Course Policies

Course expectations and policy details are shared below. If any question/concern is not answered then please use the comment feature to leave questions for me. For any personal concerns, email me.

Important: I, as your teacher, want you to succeed in this course and have a valuable learning experience. If there is anything bothering you in this course or anything going on in your personal or student life that’s preventing you from engaging in this course, then please reach out to me. I’ll do my best to help.

Writing Assignments

There will be three major writing assignments in this course. More details for each project will be given in a separate handout at the start of the project. But here are brief overviews of each assignment.

  • Project 1/Rhetorical Analysis and Radical Possibilities: The first major writing assignment will be a rhetorical analysis essay with a twist. You will analyze a particular piece of writing that you find to be moving or engaging. You will analyze how the text meets the genre, audience, and rhetorical conventions. Through your readings and discussions in the first few weeks, you will learn many key concepts on writing and rhetoric. You’ll choose a handful of these concepts for your rhetorical analysis and analyze how your chosen text adheres to or deviates from the workings of these concepts. But as part of this project, you will learn that the writing conventions of a particular genre operate via norms and ideologies of their own making. And these norms and conventions are not without exclusionary power and legacy, which tend to blockade marginalized voices and rhetorical traditions. So apart from developing knowledge about the acceptable norms and conventions of a chosen genre, you will critically analyze the ways other conventions might be left out in the process and why. You will also critically imagine the ways aberrations, disruptions, anti-norms, or unconventionalities can be introduced to the genre or your chosen text for “radical,” “dangerous” or “unruly” purposes and to what consequences. Know that the quoted words in the previous sentence are loaded, as there are ethical and unethical interpretations to them with tensions and contentious overlaps. So we will wrestle with these tensions and contradictions as a class and develop a critical conversation around how genres (and by that extension academic writing) impose on us norms/conventions that might inspire and imperil us. This paper should be at least 1500 words long. And your analysis should lead to a coherent and compelling argument about what your chosen text is able to accomplish rhetorically and an insight about academic writing you can come up with through the analysis. Additionally, this essay will be your first major step toward developing your own personal writing theory, a goal you will work toward throughout this course, culminating in the final reflection paper at the end of the semester. This project will proceed through a rough draft and final draft. Grade points: 15%

  • Project 2/Academic Research Essay: The genre of this project will be an academic research essay with the twist that the essay will be published on a single-page website that the students will create. Students will have the option to write on any topic related to a writing concern they’re invested in. After completing Project 1 and a series of interconnected reflection activities, you will be getting to know many writing concepts and writing related issues. Plus, the textbook Bad Ideas About Writing that we will follow for this project will introduce you to a range of writing and rhetorical concerns. You can write about topics such as revision, invention, writing feedback, linguistic justice, procrastination, role of a particular research skill in writing, role of a specific literacy in writing, use of multimodality in writing, usefulness of a specific technological tool, or the usage of AI. Note that such topic ideas can be vast in themselves. But they can be useful starting points to start an inquiry, depending on your personal investment. And you will be expected to narrow and fine tune the topic idea to make it engaging and manageable. Minimum word count of the essay will be 2400 words. Students will have the option to incorporate a wide range of evidence in the form of personal story, stats/data, scholarly insights, charts, archival material, interview, multimedia (audio, video, images, etc), or social media content. As I have mentioned, you’re required to publish your final essay on a website. I recommend Google Sites, which you have free access to through the Swarthmore account. With the help of a short tutorial, you will be able to publish your work on a google site very easily. Alternatively, you can use Wordpress or Medium to publish your work. Work for this project will develop in stages such as proposing your topic idea, conducting preliminary research, genre analysis, rough draft, instructor and peer feedback, setting revision goals, Writing Associate (WA) assistance, and final draft. Grade points: 35%.

  • Project 3/Discourse Community Analysis: “Discourse Community” is one of the critical writing concepts you’ll learn in this course. The concept will help you learn and prepare for the writing conventions in your major/minor. For this assignment, you will choose a discipline or discourse community (Mathematics, History, Anthropology, Criminal Justice, Media Studies, etc.) to study its writing conventions. Every discipline or discourse community has communication conventions, genres, specialized language, and audience expectations. By learning a discourse community’s conventions, their purpose, their rhetorical effects and application, you’ll prepare yourself to effectively communicate in that community. As part of this project, you’ll write an analytical essay on a discourse community and analyze two peer-reviewed essays. Your analysis should comprise of the following: 1) an overview of the conventions and expectations of the discourse community; 2) a very brief summary of the two essays that you’ve chosen to analyze; 3) the extent to which the two essays meet and deviate from the conventions of the discourse community; 4) An argument/insight that emerge from your analysis that makes a point about the way your chosen discourse community functions. You’re expected to interview a member of the discourse community (a faculty, a researcher, an advanced-level undergraduate student) and find a way to incorporate a quote or two from the interview in your analysis. The final word count should be 1500 words or more. The project will proceed through discourse community proposal, preliminary research, interview, rough draft, peer feedback, setting revision goals, and final draft. Grade points: 25%.

Grading Scale

This is a Credit/No Credit course. To receive credit, you must complete all the assigned readings and writings as outlined in the schedule. You also need to participate in class discussion and complete Moodle-based discussion posts. There will be no final exam in this course; rather, the end-of-the-term reflection paper will serve as the final assignment. If you have any concerns regarding your grade at any point, don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I am always happy to address any grade concerns.

Reflection Activities

As I have mentioned earlier, active reflection on your learning will be a crucial requirement in this course. There will be numerous reflection exercises spread throughout the semester, accompanied by an end-of-term reflection exercise. These reflection assignments will be interconnected, and through them you’ll gradually build your thinking on writing and your adaptability strategies for future writing contexts. These exercises will focus on the themes such as your past writing experiences, your analysis of key writing concepts (genre, audience, rhetorical situation, exigency, discourse community and metacognition), and your learnings in the major writing assignments. The reflection exercises will carry 7.5% points in total. The end-of-semester reflection exercise will carry 5% points and in it you will present a personal theory of writing, something you will be working on through the course of the semester. All the reflection assignments will require responding to prompts I will provide you.

Class Participation & Discussion Posts

You are expected to take class discussion very seriously, and you are expected to read the assigned readings thoroughly and critically and respond to any discussion post prompts before class time. Your class participation grade (12.5%) will depend on the frequency of your participation in class and insightfulness of your comments. Discussion will be conducted through small group discussion or open discussion with the entire class. Purpose of this grade category is to meet the following two criteria:

  • Students read the assigned texts closely and come prepared to class.
  • Students listen to each other during class discussion and respond to each other

Writing Associates (WAs)

This course will have embedded Writing Associates (WAs) to give you additional writing help. WAs take a course in Writing Pedagogy to prepare them to be effective peer tutors. They will work with the class, and with each student individually to strengthen their writing. You will be required to meet with your designated WA four times during the semester to help you revise your rough draft and to address your individual writing needs. These meetings are mandatory. Note: If you miss your scheduled meeting with WA, points might be deducted from the final draft. In due course, I will provide more information about WA conferences.

Extra Writing Help

The Writing Center (Trotter 120) is available to you as an additional out-of-class resource for developing any aspect of your writing—from brainstorming a topic, organizing a draft, to polishing a final submission. Writing Associates (WAs) hold conferences in-person or through Zoom and will offer you a thoughtful reading of your document, from any discipline, and talk with you about next steps. Speaking Associates (SPAs) can also help you prepare to give a presentation or lead seminar discussion. The Center is open Sunday through Thursday evenings, with afternoon hours on Monday through Wednesday, starting the third week of classes. To set up your WCOnline account and schedule an appointment, follow this link: bit.ly/swatwritingcenter. (Step-by-step instructions here: How to Schedule a Writing Conference.) You can also drop in during open hours. Want to know who is working when? See the Writing Center Schedule. Questions? Check the Writing Center Policies or email [email protected].

Learning Outcomes

This course, titled “Transition to College Writing,” is meant to prepare you for college level writing and thinking. The writing and reading you will do in this course will not only introduce you to academic discourses but they are also meant to help you become more adaptable and persuasive writers in a variety of future writing contexts. The following learning outcomes will be prioritized in this course:

  • Reading skills: To engage in the close reading of academic texts; develop the ability to read critically; read as a writer and rhetor; evaluate a text’s rhetorical effectiveness.
  • Writing skills: To write on complex subjects with nuance and thoughtfulness; create original content; know your own writing process; experiment with your writing habits to develop adaptability; construct error-free prose; respond thoughtfully and constructively to the work of other writers; synthesize ideas from different readings; integrate your own ideas with others’; work on different aspects of a paper including introductions, conclusions, logical progression, and transitions; practice composing and revising over multiple drafts.
  • Metacognition: To grow appreciation for the writer as a psycho-social being; learn your strengths and weaknesses as a writer; link writing situations to their explicit and implicit purposes; learn to transfer your writing skills to new and unfamiliar writing situations with strategic adaptability.
  • Rhetorical knowledge: To learn how to analyze a writing situation through rhetorical analysis; identify the purpose of a particular writing situation; develop audience awareness specific to that writing situation; employ effectively a range of rhetorical appeals (ethos, logos, pathos); persuade your audience with a variety of evidences (text, audio-visual, data, autobiographical, etc.)
  • Multimodal literacy: To engage with textual as well as non-textual sources; create textual, graphic, audio and video content when necessary; study the rhetorical potential of multimodal contexts.
  • Research: To maintain critical stance toward information sources of all types; develop versatile research strategies; choose and narrow a topic for research; gather and evaluate secondary sources through library databases and the internet; properly quote, paraphrase, and summarize from secondary sources; and utilize proper citation formats.
  • Civic engagement: To learn to engage with issues pertaining to social justice, citizenry, and civic life; attend to views/thoughts different from yours with empathy, patience, thoughtfulness and dialogue; challenge your existing assumptions; probe the intersectional nature of marginalization; and act toward equity and justice.

Attendance Policy

We will meet in-person and regularly on Tuesdays/Thursdays on scheduled class time.

  • Attendance will be taken during each meeting. You can track your attendance via Moodle.
  • Please avoid arriving late for class or leaving early or leaving the classroom frequently. Let me know if for any accommodation reasons you need to do any of these.
  • You’re allowed a maximum of 3 absences (excused or unexcused) over the course of the semester. Absences beyond that might result in failing grade, unless the cause of absence is due to extenuating circumstances and you supply official documentation attesting the cause. Despite the cause of absence, students are expected to complete all of the reading and writing assignments.

Late Work

You’re allowed late submission for any two assignments. Think of it as a lifeline. Be it Rough Draft, Peer Review Draft, Final Draft, journaling assignment, or a discussion post, you’ve a 48-hour grace period from the deadline to submit your work. Please remember, you can use the lifeline only twice, no questions asked, and within 48 hours of the official deadline. And once you use the lifeline, no late submission will be accepted. However, for emergency situations, I can be more flexible and give you time past the 48-hour grace as long as I’m furnished with an understandable cause.

Submitting the Wrong File

There will be no paper-based submission in this course. All your assignments will be submitted via Moodle. Because of the digital nature of the submission, it’s your responsibility to double check that you’ve submitted the correct version of the assignment. If you find that you’ve uploaded the wrong file, then email me the correct file before the deadline. Unless I receive the correct file by the deadline, your work will be deemed as late or not submitted. Please don’t submit your work in .pages or .wps format as these files are specific to MacOS and those with Windows computers can’t open them.

Plagiarism and Academic Integrity

Any work that you submit at any stage of the writing process—draft, thesis and outline, bibliography, discussion post, etc.—must be your own work; in addition, any words, ideas, or data that you borrow from other sources must be properly cited in your writing. Failure to do either of these can amount to plagiarism or violation of academic integrity. Penalties for such offenses can include major course penalties or possibly failure of the course and can result in reporting to the office of Dean of Student Life. For more information on this topic, please consult this link.

Course Policy on AI Usage

I am still developing my philosophy and opinions on AI and its capabilities when it comes to writing. Additionally, I am still learning and developing my thoughts on when and how to allow my students to use AI. The Writing Associates Program at Swarthmore, which oversees this course, is also in the midst of developing its policies on AI. But please know that there’s consensus among AI experts that AI technology is prone to inaccuracies, biases, and “hallucinations” that may not lead to a thoughtful and sophisticated academic argument, which you need to demonstrate to pass this course. You’re allowed to use AI bots only to brainstorm on a topic and further your research but in those cases you’ll have to notify me the extent to which you’re using AI and why. If it comes to my notice that you’ve used the help of AI to generate contents for any part of your classwork and you haven’t alerted me beforehand, then it might amount to plagiarism and I may consider reporting the case to college administration. Note: Using any AI-based grammar or spellchecker is acceptable.

For Students with Disabilities

I want all students to have the best possible chance to succeed in this course and that includes neurodiverse learners. If you believe you need accommodations for a disability or a chronic medical condition, please contact Student Disability Services via email at [email protected] to arrange an appointment to discuss your needs. As appropriate, the office will issue students with documented disabilities or medical conditions a formal Accommodations Letter. Since accommodations require early planning and are not retroactive, please contact Student Disability Services as soon as possible. For details about the accommodations process, visit the Student Disability Services website. You are also welcome to contact me, your instructor, privately to discuss your academic needs. However, all disability-related accommodations must be arranged, in advance, through Student Disability Services.

Sexual Misconduct & Title IX

As a Swarthmore employee, I’m required by law to report any disclosures of sexual assault or harassment to the Title IX Coordinator. These reports are private, but must include identifiable information about the victim. The reporting will include the date, time, location (on or off-campus) of assault, and whether or not the victim and/or perpetrator are Swarthmore students. Once the Title IX Coordinator receives a report, they will send the victim information about support and resources, and invite them to come in for assistance. While the College has an obligation to reach out to provide resources and assess campus safety, the victim is not required to participate in a meeting or possible investigation. More specific information and resources are available at Sexual Harassment/Assault Resources & Education.

Other Campus Resources

Swarthmore provides a range of resources for your personal excellence, well-being, and academic success. Please avail of these resources/services to succeed in this course and your academic career. If there is any source you’re aware of that you think your peers will benefit from but not listed here, please suggest them here using the comment feature.